


Off On a Journey

by MewMckenna



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Endgame Garcia Flynn/Lucy Preston, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 06:35:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16112858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MewMckenna/pseuds/MewMckenna
Summary: When the team gets sent back to the Oregon Trail in order to save a member of the Donner Party Garcia Flynn and Lucy end up alone for weeks on end.





	Off On a Journey

**Author's Note:**

> Hi so this is my first story so please be merciful. I wrote this over several weeks whenever I had time so sorry if it’s not the best. Enjoy!

The time team stepped out of the lifeboat. The sun beat down on the plains even though it was only May. They were in the year 1846, just outside of Independence, Missouri. Lucy could think of only one reason why the Mothership had jumped there.   
Garcia stumbled as he climbed out of the lifeboat, “Why exactly do we care about the Oregon Trail?”  
Lucy thought for a moment, “This is the week that the Donner Party supposedly left for California. Maybe Rittenhouse is trying to make sure they live for some reason.”  
“Or maybe they’re trying to make sure that someone dies,” said Wyatt.  
Lucy blinked, “Why do you think that?”  
Wyatt scratched the top of his head, “I liked learning about to Oregon Trail when I was younger. With the cowboys and stuff. There were a lot of bandits running around.” He realized everyone was staring at him and he continued, “The Donner Party was only saved because one man, James Reed, killed another man once they got into the mountains, and the group decided to send him ahead as a scout as punishment. He was making his way back to the caravan whenever the snow came. He was the one responsible for saving the party.”  
Lucy suddenly remembered something, “I remember him. He and his family practically founded San Jose. He campaigned to make it the capital of California, and put a lot of money into the town. Without him, San Jose wouldn’t exist as we know it, or possibly at all.”  
Rufus looked confused, “But why does that matter. I don’t even like San Jose.” Lucy countered, “You should, it’s the epicenter of Silicon Valley and the third most populous city in California. Over a million people live there. Without, it the tech industry wouldn’t be the same. It could set us back years, possibly even decades.”  
Rufus nodded, “Yeah, I guess that probably should matter considering I’m the tech genius here, and also we came here in a time machine.”  
Garcia smiled sarcastically, “Rufus without his tech wouldn’t really be Rufus at all, now would it?”  
Lucy smiled, “No he would not.”  
And with that, they started walking to independence to find some clothes and hopefully, the Donner Party. 

Lucy smothed her skirt over her petticoats and then adjusted the sleeves in her blouse so that the giant sleeves puffed up correctly.  
She stepped out from behind the barn and she saw Garcia kneeling on the ground, tying his boots. Lucy looked around, “Where are Wyatt and Rufus?”  
Garcia smiled his sarcastic smile, “Wyatt couldn’t find anything that fit him well enough. Your soldier is a bit shorter than he thinks he is.”  
Lucy frowned, “He’s not my soldier.”  
Garcia smirked as he walked up to her. He poked one of her sleeves, “Have you been working out Lucy?”  
Lucy scoffed and crossed her arms, “Leave the 1840’s alone. This dress is fantastic.”  
Garcia raised his eyebrows, “Fantastically awful.”  
Lucy lightly punched his arm, “No, fantastically wonderful. I love this dress.”  
Garcia smiled and smoothed our her sleeves again, “Fine. The dress is great, now let’s go find the cowboy and Rufus.” 

When they got to Independence, it was just as gross and crowded as Lucy thought it would be. Hundreds of people were crowded around, waiting for their turn to start on the trail. It took them some time to find Wyatt and Rufus, but they practiaclly ran into them when Lucy saw someone she recognized.  
Lucy started to speak, “Hey, I think that’s-“ But was cut off as she ran directly into Wyatt.  
She tripped, but he caught her before she fell, “Ma’am,” he said.  
Lucy smiled awkwardly and then stood up. “So you found clothes?”  
Rufus walked up to them and nodded, “Yep, but now somebody is very unprepared to go on the trail.”  
Wyatt shook his head, “Its fine, now where’s the Donner party?”  
Lucy turned to her left, “Right there, I think.”  
Garcia put an arm around her shoulder, “Well then, wife, lets go join our party.”  
Lucy just smiled and shook her head. Wyatt shot him a scowl. 

They spent a couple of days with the party after joining and they managed to find a wagon on the outskirts of town that seemed to be abandoned. They tried not to think about why no one was claiming it, but Lucy knew that in all likelihood, the owner or owners were dead. They bargained for what they would need to survive a couple of weeks with some game the boys shot.  
A few days before the wagon train was ready to leave Lucy told the others her suspicions about Rittenhouse, “I think they’re going to make sure that Reed doesn’t kill that man, so he’s never sent ahead and help won’t come. He’ll more than likely die in the mountains. If that doesn’t work they may just have him be murdered by someone after they pass the mountains.”  
Rufus frowned, “So the only way to save him is to stay with him? I know we figured we might have to go with on the trail for a bit, but I didn’t sign up to die of cholera.”  
Flynn inturrupted him, “Would you rather San Jose never exist? Because you are aware that without it your machine wouldn’t exist and Rittenhouse would have faced no opposition up until this point?”  
Wyatt’s face became tense, “Jessica probably wouldn’t be back.”  
Everyone was quiet and Flynn looked at Lucy from his hooded eyes. “Well then,” he said, “we have to save him and take out more than just the agent, we need to take out everyone on that ship, because if anybody can pilot it, then we’ll keep doing this for ages. We can end it here once and for all.”  
Lucy nodded, “Yes, and we know they only have two people who can pilot it. Emma and somebody else is left, and my bet is he came with them. So we take out her and the other one, then we’re done.”  
Rufus looked at them nostalgically, “You know, part of me never thought we’d ever be done. I don’t know what I’ll do when we are.”  
Lucy tried to smile, but her face was stuck in a frown, “Me neither, but that’s okay. We’ll figure it out.  
She cleared her throat, “Anyways, we have to come up with a plan. I don’t think we should go on the whole journey, and I don’t think we’ll need to. Who knows if Emma will show up here or on the trail.”  
Flynn smiled deviously, “So we split up, obviously.”  
Wyatt looked shocked, “Absolutely not.”  
Rufus furrowed his eyebrows, “He’s got a point. Two of us stay here and watch for Rittenhouse and the other two go on the trail to protect Reed.”  
Lucy bit her lip, “That won’t work, how will we get back to each other. We could be hundreds of miles away by the time we get rid of the agents.”  
Rufus smiled, “You seem forget that I helped invented time travel. We have our ways of dealing with stuff like this.”  
“How?” said Wyatt.  
“When we first started tests, people traveled around in the different eras, and we needed a way to communicate without satalites, so we invented handheld-solar powered radios that can reach just about as far as you can go. There are two in the lifeboat.”  
Lucy smiled, “So then, Rufus, obviously you stay here with the lifeboat and-“  
Flynn cut her off, “I’ll go with you on the trail, Lucy.”  
Wyatt’s jaw clenched, “No, I will.”  
Flynn smirked, “Someone needs to protect Rufus, cowboy. Plus, I already told them I’m her husband, so that’d be a bit strange if you went with her, alone, don’t you think?”  
Wyatt scowled at Flynn and then pulled Lucy aside. He stepped towards her until he was practically in her face, “Don’t do this, Lucy.”  
Lucy furrowed her eyebrows and then pushed him away. She walked over to Flynn, ignoring Wyatt entirely. “I’m going to go find some water,” she said.  
Flynn offered Lucy an arm and she took it. They walked off together like a proper married couple. 

 

They left on May 12th, and it was just as terrible as Lucy thought it would be.  
Flynn had offered to let her ride up front in the wagon with him, but she felt it would be awkward, so she didn’t. It was a mistake.  
The sun beat down relentlessly, and her feet hurt so badly by the end of the first day from her terrible 19th century boots that she was sure she wouldn’t be able to walk for days. Her dress, which had seemed fine while they were waiting in Independence, felt heavy under that late-spring sun.  
The next day she rode in the wagon with Flynn and she was much happier. They talked all day long about their homes and childhoods. Flynn liked Croatian better than English, she learned, because he thought it felt more natural. When he was a kid his favorite cookie was raisin, like every perfectly normal child, obviously.  
Flynn seemed lighter on the trail, more like how she thought he might have been before Rittenhouse. She loved this Flynn. He was still immensely sarcastic, but he cared more and was kind. They mainly only spoke to each other while they were moving, and he seemed disappointed when they did stop for the day. 

At night they slept in the bed of the wagon under the few blankets that had been in the wagon when they found it. One night it was particularly cold and Lucy began to shiver, despite the fact that she had been sweating less than two hours prior.  
She couldn’t get comfortable, so she kept tossing and turning. Finally Flynn had enough, and he hissed, “Lucy if you don’t stop moving around I’m going to make you sleep on the ground.”  
Lucy frowned, “Sorry, I’m just cold.”  
Although Lucy couldn’t see him, she felt Flynn’s demeanor shift and he suddenly became more serious, “Here, come closer.”  
She hesitated and he spoke again, “If you’re cold then body heat will help.”  
She bit her lip, “Fine.”  
She scooted over and snuggled up to Flynn. He wrapped an arm around her waist and she buried her face in his chest. She breathed in his scent and smiled. Even in 1846 he still smelled like home.  
She moved closer and she felt him stiffen as she spoke, “Thank you, Flynn.”  
Silence, and then, “Call me Garcia.”  
So she did. 

The rest of the trip passed in a blur. They found the sleeper agent, he wasn’t very good at being an agent and kept slipping up, so it wasn’t terribly hard. One night he went off to look for tinder to start the fire and Garcia quietly took care of him. Emma and the pilot never showed on the trail, but Wyatt contacted them one day and told them that Rufus had found the Mothership and taken it back to present day, where he picked up Jiya and had her take him back. She then left so Emma and her crew were stuck. Rittenhouse had finally lost their time machine.  
And so it was time to go back. The team agreed to wait until the train reached Chimney rock, because they had no other way of knowing the caravan’s coordinates. That left Lucy and Garcia with about two more days of travel and Wyatt and Rufus with two more days of waiting.  
The second to last day was uneventful, but the last day Lucy tried to get herself killed. They were going up a hill and Lucy was walking behind the wagon in order to lighten the load. Suddenly, a loud crack! rang through the air as one of the ropes securing the wagon to the oxen broke. Garcia, who had been gathering tinder from the side of the road, leaped to Lucy’s side and pulled her out of the way of the wagon as it went barreling down the hill. Lucy was visibly shaken and Garcia pulled her into a hug. She relaxed in his embrace and after a bit she pulled away. He let her go reluctantly and Lucy found that she couldn’t quite look him in the eye. She thanked Garcia for saving her for the hundredth time. Lucy strode away to go look after some of the children and he went to help get the wagon attached to the oxen again. Later that night, as they sat on the front of the wagon, Lucy leaned her head on Garcia’s shoulder. “Thank you,” she said.  
Garcia smiled, “Its not like I haven’t saved your life before. You have a talent for trying to get yourself killed.”  
“Not just for that. This trip has been the best few weeks of this year. After everything with Wyatt and,” she paused, “Jessica, I’m glad that I got to spend a few weeks out of the bunker with you.”  
Garcia chuckled, “I doubt I was the highlight of this trip, Lucy.”  
She sat up straight and looked him in the eye, “Don’t say that, okay. Don’t underestimate yourself. You’re wonderful, I’m glad it was you I spent this time with.”  
He kept his gaze on her and Lucy felt the tentiom between them build. “Lucy,” he said, “you are the best thing in my life.”  
He leaned down towards her and Lucy stretched upwards. They were almost kissing whenever someone shouted, “There’s the Rock!”  
Lucy jumped and faced forward in her seat again. Garcia’s gaze still lingered on her, but he turned back to steering the oxen. Lucy took one of his hands and hers and she leaned back on his shoulder. Really it was his arm because she was so short. Garcia bent over and kissed her on the forehead.  
Lucy closed her eyes and smiled. She wanted to enjoy what little time they had left.  
Only a moments later they reached Chimmney rock and where abandoned their wagon and walked about a mile out before they radioed Rufus. A few minutes later Wyatt came running up to them.  
He was panting and he leaned over on his knees. “Howdy Ma’am,” he said as he was straightening up.  
Flynn raised an eyebrow at him, “What’d you do, run a 10k before you got here?”  
Wyatt gave him an exasperated look, “Close enough. I had to run back to the lifeboat after y’all called. I was keeping an eye on Emma outside of town.”  
Flynn absent mindedly put an arm around Lucy, “Really? What’s she up to.”  
Wyatt looked at his arm, then Lucy, then back to the arm, “They’re trying to find a way back, but they don’t have one.”  
He paused as he looked back at Garcia, “I see y’all got pretty cozy on the trip.”  
Lucy thought Garcia would move his arm, but instead he just pulled her closer, “You could say that.”  
Lucy stepped away and started towards the direction Wyatt came from, “Let’s go, I need a shower.”  
Garcia laughed, “Don’t we all.”  
Wyatt scowled at him and Garcia shrugged.  
They walked back to the lifeboat and Garcia helped Lucy climb inside.  
Wyatt came in after them and went to take the seat across from Lucy, but Garcia was already sitting in it and was helping Lucy buckle her seatbelt.  
His jaw clinched as he took the seat by Rufus. Rufus looked at him and furrowed his eyebrow, “You okay there, Wyatt?”  
Wyatt looked at him with a straight face, “I wish he was still shooting at us so I could could kill him.”  
Rufus looked at him for a moment and started to say something, but thought better of it and went back to calibrating the machine.  
The lifeboat shook and they were off, back to the present day.  
When Wyatt got back he went straight to his room and started packing. He angrily shoved his things into his suitcases until finally he couldn’t take it anymore. He had to go see Lucy. It was obvious Flynn had practically brainwashed her over the past two weeks and he needed to fix it. He needed to remind her what she really wanted. She’d forget about Flynn the moment he kissed her again. 

Lucy stood in her room in the bunker packing her things. Now that Rittenhouse was done, they could come out of hiding. Suddenly, someone grabbed her waist from behind. She spun and saw Wyatt smirking at her.  
“What?” he said.  
Lucy pulled away from him and walked over to her bed where her suitcase sat. “Wyatt. Shouldn’t you be packing?”  
He walked over to her and brushed a strand of hair out of her face. “I could, but I wanted to come see you.”  
Lucy lifted her eyebrows, “Why?”  
He smiled took her hands in his, “You know why.”  
Lucy pulled her hands away and crossed her arms. “No I don’t.”  
Wyatt smirked and stepped closer to her, “Are you just waiting for me to tell you I love you again, cause I will. I love you, Lucy.”  
He tried to kiss her but Lucy pushed him away, “Wyatt, that may be true, but you have a wife . And you left me for Jessica the moment you realized you had a chance with her. She left and suddenly I’m your first choice again because you see me as your only choice. I won’t be settled for.”  
Wyatt began to look angry, “You have to be kidding me Lucy. Yes, I love Jessica, but you’re the one who told her to stay.”  
Lucy shook her head, “And you’re the one who brought her to the bunker in the first place.”  
She squeezed one of his hands. “I love you Wyatt, but not like that. Not anymore. That’s all that’s ever going to be between us again.”  
He stepped back and shook his head, “You say that Lucy, but it doesn’t sound like you.”  
He stalked to the door where he bumped into Garcia. Wyatt looked from him and back to Lucy. Something in his eyes changed as his anger flared. His jaw clenched and he shook his head, “Right. You can drop the act Lucy, I know it’s about him.” Garcia’s eyebrows shot up and he smiled like he was amused. “He’s been manipulating you. You don’t want this Lucy,” Said Wyatt.  
Lucy began to get anxious. “No, Wyatt, he didn’t. He didn’t even know about what you said to me.”  
Garcia blinked, “Oh, are you talking about when he told he loved you right before your future selves showed up a few weeks ago?”  
Wyatt looked at Lucy with accusatory glare, “Why would you tell him?”  
Lucy gaped at Flynn, “I didn’t, I don’t know how he knows!”  
Garcia looked tired, “I happened to walk into the hallway just as cowboy over there spilled his guts.”  
Wyatt pointed a finger angrily at Flynn, “You have no idea what you think you saw. You had better stay away from her.”  
Flynn stood up straighter, “What if she doesn’t want me to stay away?”  
Wyatt clenched his fist and Lucy sprung towards them, positioning herself between Garcia and Wyatt. “That’s enough, Wyatt. You should go.”  
His nostrils flared and he stared at Flynn with an intense hatred, “I’m not going anywhere. Not when he thinks he can just disrespect you like that.”  
Garcia rolled his eyes, “I didn’t insult her at all, just you. Now listen to Lucy and leave.”  
Wyatt looked at Lucy. ”You know, Lucy, I used to think you were nothing like your mother. Turns out I was wrong.”  
Lucy flinched, “Wyatt, stop.”  
He continued, “You are choosing a murderer over me. He’s changing you and soon enough, you’ll be just like him.”  
Lucy shook her head, “You’re wrong, Wyatt. I did change, but not because of him. It was because of you.”  
Wyatt roles his eyes, “Oh come on Lucy, ever since Flynn got here you’ve been so untouchable.”  
Lucy stepped closer to him, “I became distant after you brought Jessica back. You had your wife back, but you still treated me like I was your property. I’m not yours Wyatt, I’m not anybodies. Now get out.”  
Wyatt looked like he was about to say something, but Garcia glared at him, and placed an arm around Lucy protectively.  
Wyatt spat, “This isn’t over,” and walked out the door.  
Lucy took a deep breath, the reality of the situation hitting her. She lifted a hand to her face and felt a tear trailing down her cheek. Flynn wrapped his arms around her and she rested her head on his chest. Her quiet tears turned into sobs. She had lost so much in such a short time. Her mom died only a few weeks before, her life before Rittenhouse was gone, and her sister never existed. She had lost Amy almost two years prior but the wound was still raw. Now she had even lost Wyatt. He had promised he wouldn’t leave. But he did, and she had told him to. It tore her apart.  
Flynn held her tighter. “Shh, it’s okay. It’s going to be alright, Lucy.”  
Lucy spoke between sobs, “He promised me, he told me he wouldn’t leave. He told me he wouldn’t ever let me down.”  
Garcia held her for she didn’t know how long, until she finally spoke again, “I’ve lost everything.”  
Flynn rested his chin on the top of her head, “You haven’t lost me.”  
Lucy was suddenly taken back to a moment, much like this, when Wyatt was the one comforting her and he had said the very same thing. She had believed Wyatt then, but somehow, when Garcia said it, it seemed more final. He wasn’t going to disappoint her.  
Lucy looked up at Garcia. He gave her a sad smile. She returned it as she wrapped her arms around his neck. He leaned down towards her and suddenly, she was kissing her former worst enemy, Garcia Flynn.


End file.
